I've been trying to think of the right words to say all day long in response to this. All I came up with was "No." lol Not falling for it this time. It's nice having a decent schedule and excess energy. A hell of a lot more positive vibes as well, though that does refer only to my situation at home. I think I'll pass until FFXIV comes out--and even that's still up in the air.

Definitely sounds interesting, though. I'd like to know if they're going to rebalance some of the Gods and other HNMs in preparation. Would love and hate to see something like Vrtra soloed. RDM sj might just be broken soon.

f'kn Borne.

But you bring up a valid point. Seems like they'll have to deconstruct a lot of the existing limitations to accommodate these latest changes. Dragon's Aery is bad enough as is; now with the level cap set to 99, you'll have smaller groups up there eager to take on the wee beasties. Larger groups will splinter; newbies to the zone will light up with anticipation and walk home empty handed after botters get that 3 minute claim and kill under their belt for the 5th day in a row. Sky mobs and ??? spots will probably fall under this category as well... easy mobs will be easier still, and diorite hunting will be even more of a pain in the ass.

I'm also curious to see what kind of re-balancing act they'll pull to keep everything moderately under control. Looks like a FFA at this point lol.

I disagree actually... There is exactly 1 level 51 piece of gear that level 75 players will go out of their way to obtain/use, I don't see why a level 99 player would want anything to do with level 72-75 gear. Since the first cap increase will probably only be to level 80, this makes some sense, because gods and such will be even easier to down, so yes, there may be an influx of competition, but once it's 85 and over, I don't see current gear scaling that well. 24 levels is huge, I hope SE realizes that is is prepared to fill all those levels. Both with mobs, proper gear, synth recipies, spells, abilities, and enough new endgame content to be worthwhile.Part of me is anticipating though, that they will just be adding a "Hard mode" to current endgame stuff, where instead of level 90 kirin, you're fighting level 120 kirin, and you get Osode +2, lame.

Unfortunately I find myself in the same camp as you when thinking about the likely "upgrade to Hard mode" you mentioned. Sounds like something they'd try. If they shore up mob levels to compensate for the players, it might throw a lot of things off balance, even loot tables.

However I should have made myself clear in the prefacing post: while most of the DA gear has been outclassed for years, there's still a few items worthy of the trip, namely E.body and the neptune set. Einherjar aside, there's still a large logjam for those items on some servers. It just stands to reason that what will come out of the new zones/etc might also have the same abysmal drop rates that this game is infamous for; maybe there will be a short burst of interest in grabbing the existing (out of date) gear to tide some users over until the stats are uncovered for drops in the new areas. Just to placate those with an inherent need to upgrade no matter how trivial or exponential the benefit. E.body is still top class and you'd be hard pressed to find a set of gear that tops neptune for certain WS on some jobs. Sky gear... well...

Haidate. Most say they'll never trump that piece, but SE is known to throw a few curve balls, no??

It just remains to be seen what they're planning to bridge that huge 24 level gap. The huge difference in skill levels from that alone and the possible retooling of the current merit system to fix it are of particular interest to me, not to mention utilizing the idea of applying extra stats (via quests and such) to existing gear. Granted I'm not up to date on the newest in game systems, but so far it seems like what Joe said: it's nearing the end so they might just be in game breaker mode rofl. It's all very interesting from an outside point of view.

I've got to agree Borne and the only appropriate response being "No" lol

This game was a super hard habit to kick, and I've never honestly been so tempted to come back as I am the past few days, but really the thought of having to reinstall everything, sit through hours of patching, get my account/characters reactivated, relevel all my jobs to 99, finish current merits, do a brand new kind of meriting when hitting 99, and going back to needing a group to do anything and everything again? ...Nah.

Besides FFXIV, there was FFXI news: the level cap has been increased to 99, and Odin and Alexander will appear as Summons in FFXI.

Read that line earlier and laughed to myself thinking kotaku was just picking on ffxi players like usual. But im gonna have to follow borne's lead and just say no to this...its been almost 6 months since i played and i really dont wanna get stuck in the ffxi rut again

Besides FFXIV, there was FFXI news: the level cap has been increased to 99, and Odin and Alexander will appear as Summons in FFXI.

Read that line earlier and laughed to myself thinking kotaku was just picking on ffxi players like usual. But im gonna have to follow borne's lead and just say no to this...its been almost 6 months since i played and i really dont wanna get stuck in the ffxi rut again

-- It's been six and a half years since the last increase to level cap. Are you planning more "Limit Break" quests (quests which increase the level cap)?

Matsui: We don't plan on having quests like the previous ones. I guess we do need to continue them somehow, but we plan on lowering the difficulty. Raising the level cap changes up the balance and is tough on the adventurers. Thus if they can just go and release it--. It's not like we do it to be mean (laugh).

-- You say you'll be raising the level cap step by step. What will the next cap be?

Matsui: We'll start with 80. It's been a long time since we set the cap to 75, so we want to make lots of changes level by level on the way to 80. We haven't decided whether to raise by 5s or 10s after that.

-- Once the level cap is removed, will the current HNM (an abbreviation for "high-level notorious monster", monsters designed to be fought by many players at once) be adjusted?

Matsui: We're considering not making major changes. We don't think it's bad that the fierce enemies and endgame content up to now can be taken on with fewer players. Instead, we plan to add new enemies to fit the new level cap.

-- With the increase in level cap comes an increase in support job level cap. Powerful magics and abilities like Refresh and Convert will become usable without having to be one's specialties. Are you planning to adjust their effect when used as a support job?

Matsui: Personally, I like the idea of getting Refresh from a support job. I'd like to see Red Mage gain an even stronger Refresh, making battles even more flashy as he tells everyone to "Go for it! Spam your magic!".

-- With how long the level cap has been 75, I think there have been a lot of people who worked hard to get "ultimate gear". How do you plan to follow this up?

Matsui: Using the "Magian's Trials" system we plan to implement, we believe they will continue to be useful at higher levels. We'd like to see them mixed with new equipment.

* About the expansion battle area "Abyssea"

-- You can get the third type of job-specific equipment ("AF3") in Abyssea, but will you need to buy all three Abysseas to get it all?

Ito: You can get it all from a single package. Depending on which you have, different materials will be available for "Magian's Trials", and its objectives will differ.

-- What are the major differences between the three packages?

Tanaka: They each contain different areas, and the monsters that appear are different. You can choose between them according to your goals.

Ito: Unlike Dynamis, a single area one must reserve, Abyssea can be entered freely by anyone. It can even be soloed.

* About "Final Fantasy XIV"

-- You announced "Final Fantasy XIV"'s α and β test participants, but can you give us a solid date?

Tanaka: They will be displayed on the β tester site that goes live March 11th. We're currently making major adjustments, so the dates may change one way or the other.

-- How long will the α test be?

Tanaka: That depends on the response from the testers.

-- The cheers were quite impressive when you announced the "FFXIV" β test. How did that feel?

Kawamoto: I was overjoyed. I didn't expect them to cheer that loud. (laughs)

->Matsui: We don't plan on having quests like the previous ones. I guess we do need to continue them somehow, but we plan on lowering the difficulty. Raising the level cap changes up the balance and is tough on the adventurers. Thus if they can just go and release it--. It's not like we do it to be mean (laugh). <-

lol:1. we dont plan on having cap quests2. I guess we need to continue them 3. we plan on lowering the difficulty

.. did he just make up this plan while he was talking?

_________________Life's for the living so live it or you're better off dead.\PSN ID: Daymos256Steam: Daymos256

Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:22 pmPosts: 202
Gender: There are no girls on the internets.

Daymon wrote:

lol:1. we dont plan on having cap quests2. I guess we need to continue them 3. we plan on lowering the difficulty

.. did he just make up this plan while he was talking?

Yes, Yes he did.

I figured out what happened. They all took a bunch of drugs right before vanafest and just made things up as they went, and now they are going to just do all the crazy they made up and see if it works, it should be fun.

lol:1. we dont plan on having cap quests2. I guess we need to continue them 3. we plan on lowering the difficulty

.. did he just make up this plan while he was talking?

Yes, Yes he did.

I figured out what happened. They all took a bunch of drugs right before vanafest and just made things up as they went, and now they are going to just do all the crazy they made up and see if it works, it should be fun.

Nice find Daymos. Looks like end game as we know it is intentionally being shifted down to midgame and a whole new end game is going to be created. Might give us a change to experience some stuff that we haven't. So Square is intentionally going to allow abilities like refresh and convert to be subbable...interesting.

Anywho I saw this article on Petfoodalpha.com today. Basically its a defense of the upcoming update by FusionX. (Petfoodalpha's host). Who knew FFXI had so many naysayers lol.

Some of you that frequent the site often will know that I can be very negative when discussing Square Enix and the last few version updates that we’ve seen. However, when the announcements were made at this years VanaFest that the level cap would be increased, that both new NMs and HNMs are going to be added, and then that the new Abyssea add-ons would be made in a way so a party could do the new content… suddenly I was extremely excited for Final Fantasy XI again after the past year of disappointments.

I’ve recently skimmed some of the community forums, some of the blogs etc. and there is one thing that I am constantly running into that is surprising me. People are very unhappy about the new level cap. Unhappy to the point where they swear at Square Enix in every sentence of their post. Is there something I missed?

There are a variety of things that people are complaining over, but is there really a reason to worry?

End Game Is Going To Be Easier

Currently, endgame as we know it will be changed to a certain degree yes. There was no discussions of setting a level 75 cap on Dynamis, nothing about level cap restrictions in Dragon’s Aery. Sky will be easier, Sea will be easier, and with that the possibility of Absolute Virtue finally being defeated now that everybody’s level has gone up by 29. The same could probably be said for Pandemonium Warden as well. Some of the strategy could be lost during these fights in place of brute force, but they will also become more possible for players that may not of had a chance to tackle them before. Starting with the June version update, endgame as we know it will slowly start to shift towards mid-game. It doesn’t mean the content won’t be playable. You’ll still be able to do existing events on your level 75 job.

Now, lets not forget that with every version update scheduled for 2010, there is the inclusion of both new NMs and HNMs. We saw from a video played during the event that we’ll see some evil pixies, giant enemy crabs, and insanely large slimes. And to top that off, a new dragon that looks like Vrtra on steroids. It’s safe to say that the idea of camping NMs and HNMs isn’t going anywhere. If the idea of fighting Fafnir is to “easy” or “old school” for you now, go tackle the new antlion NM which is sure to offer up an exciting new challenge for players.

My Homam is going to be worthless

It seems that many people haven’t noticed that with the March version update we’re going to get our answer to making our gear more useful with the coming higher levels. Trial of the Magians will allow players to participate in a series of quests that are split up into a number of different categories. Upon the completion of these quests, players will be able to select augments for their weapon or armor piece of choice. The fact that both Relic and Mythic weapons will be able to be augmented via this new quest line leads me to believe that everything could be fair game. If that’s the case, take your Homam and toss some augments on it, and it’s suddenly not so outdated anymore. Armor isn’t the only thing that can be updated either, weapons are going to be a popular thing to be upgrading in the next version update. Read the following quote carefully:

Square wrote:

By repeating the quests, up to 80 different features can be added to a single weapon. With figures such as Damage and Delay added to the equation, there exist 500 possible attribute patterns for a single quest branch!

Eighty. On a single weapon.

Damage, delay, probably some of the obvious things like STR, DEX, HP, MP etc will be added. But eighty things? Will we be seeing more job specific augments available from the Magian system? No matter how you look at it, you’re great gear can definitely remain great. It seems they are taking the great augment rewards from the previous add-on scenarios and allowing them on equipment of your choice. We’ll get our first taste of what’s possible in the coming weeks.

The only real problem with this new level cap is that people don’t have the time to, or they don’t want to have to go back to the grind of leveling. But the thing is, unless you want to tackle the new content, you don’t have to. Current endgame activities aren’t going anywhere, you’ll still be able to do them. If you want a new exciting challenge then you’ll work to build up your character to take those challenges head on. Even without leveling we’ll still be able to see some of the great benefits that the Magian quests will make available to adventurers at level 75. If you still think you’re ready to grab a pitchfork and a torch and march over to Square Enix’s HQ, I urge you to take a deep breath and wait until the content becomes available before saying it’s the worst thing to happen to Final Fantasy XI.

I wont lie, im finding myself more intrigued by this level cap increase the more i think about it..... im gonna wait and see how things go once the first cap increase is implemented. then i will decide for sure if i wanna come back or not lol.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum